Welcome to the Wildlife Stewardship web pages. These pages are designed to help reduce human/wildlife conflicts by giving you the information necessary to keep yourself and wild animals safe. The most common cause of conflicts is when people mistakenly think it safe to approach, interact with or feed wild animals.

Wild animals usually maintain a safe distance from people. However, every time a visitor tries to approach an animal, this tends to habituate the animal to the presence of people. Habituated animals often give the false impression of being tame or domesticated-they are not. This can lead to people being injured and sometimes killed when animals are fleeing or protection their young, space or food. It is up to us as visitors to wild places to not approach wild animals, and if they approach us, to back away and maintain a safe distance.

Please take the time to learn how to minimize the potential for human/wildlife conflicts, and how to keep wildlife wild.

The symbols for Center for Wildlife Information are the bear and the wildflower. Together they illustrate the delicate interdependency of all living things. The magnificent and mighty bear cannot protect itself from inappropriate human behavior any more than a delicate wildflower can keep from being trampled. The wildflower, when picked, soon wilts and dies. The bear, when fed by humans, becomes conditioned to handouts and less afraid of humans. The results are often fatal to humans, wildlife or both.

Chuck Bartlebaugh is now with the Be Bear Aware Campaign and can be reached at 406-239-2315 or by email at bearinfo@cfwi.org

All information contained within the “In The NEWS” and Logo’s are copyright by the source of the news and is reprinted with permission of the news source.All information and images, Copyrighted 2012, Center for Wildlife Information.Web design copyright 2005-2008, Flathead Valley Web Works.